I lived in Israel for 15 years, and there was a couple when a rare day was without a suicidal terrorist attack. It's a rare accident in Russia, and especially in Saint Petersburg.

The explosion took place one station away from the one I live on, and I pass the station train on which was targeted pretty much every day. I've no doubts the subway is still the safest means of transportation, but.. It's a fact it was as close to me as it ever was during 15 years in Israel.

Another thing, I was going to a restaurant infront of the very much station which was targeted, almost at the same time(within half an hour). The area near the station is always crowded, but this time it was exceptional.

I have also never seen such an array of ambulances in one place. I've never seen a helicopter land on the street in middle of a city.

P.S:I think that route is used by no less than 200 000k people daily, and just about 50(with 14 dead) were affected. I got no illusion that it was actually "close", it's surely not closest I've been to death in my life.

I'm glad you're safe! The world is more scary now than I ever knew it to be when I was a kid. I don't know if that's just because I've grown up or because things have gotten more crazy.

I think education and mental health services are the only solution to "terrorism". And perhaps, legalizing "illicit" drugs and making it safer to access them and such alongside redirecting the billions of dollars currently used to "fight" it instead to educate people and provide them health services to make it safer or rid them of it.

I feel like a lot of the planet's "terror" is caused directly by government and is by design though so I don't expect it to end when it's such a convenient scapegoat to get away with anything these days. Mind you, I know very little of the politics in Israel. I video chatted several times with one Israeli before and it was surprising how similar our philosophies, cultures, and worlds were, even despite the differences. That's just one Israeli among I don't even know how many, but I hope it's more than a tiny few.

In the meantime, I wish you and your friends and families well while you process this unthinkable event and well into the future. And wish for peace in all of our lives.

Append:

Shame on me. I should have realized sooner that the incident was in Russia. I've heard of Saint Petersburg before, but didn't rule out the possibility that there were many since in the UK/America its common for cities to repeat. I digress. I don't suppose it affects my response much. The idea remains the same: I know little of the politics, but the attack is unfortunate, and hopefully it doesn't get used as an excuse to promote further violence. I think peace is a better thing to strive for, and free (libre) education and health services are probably the best ways to achieve it.

Append:

While we're on the subject is there any value in referring to it as a "terrorist" attack? In this day and age that just carries political power, but it tells us little about it. It doesn't help us to process or understand it.

I was listening to Steve Hughes' "While It's Still Legal" act tonight, and he had a fair bit of material on the subject. Nothing overly new to most of us, but he did a good job of it for the most part, and made a pretty good point saying the "war" on "terror" can never end because "terror" is a noun. You can't even really wage war on a noun, but also "terror" will never end so the war will never end (side note: especially when you feed it with weapons and death). Another rather interesting point that he had, which is also not especially news to most of us, but he pointed out how the most technologically sophisticated military forces in the world rained down on men living in huts and tents with decades old technology. And worst still, it wasn't purely on enemy forces, but on a fucking city full of civilians. That is a far worse "terror" than anything America or the UK or France has witnessed. We live in a fucking sick time where governments aren't even pretending to be good anymore. And the people are too fucking stupid to call them on it. It's terrible. So yeah, I'm very sorry to hear about this attack. But again, I really hope no governments use it as an excuse to do more harm.

While we're on the subject is there any value in referring to it as a "terrorist" attack?

How about honoring the dead with the truth?

-----sig:“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

While we're on the subject is there any value in referring to it as a "terrorist" attack?

I think any attack such as the one in St. Petersburg, (or the one in the UK, or the Pulse Nightclub shooting in the states, or the attack at the mosque in Montreal, etc etc) could and should be labelled a terrorist attack... Then again, I suppose every such attack spreads terror to those in the immediate vicinity and surrounding areas (even the rest of the country).

If they weren't called terrorist attacks I guess you would just call them 'attacks', which is also true but lacks detail. I think a terrorist attack is basically just an attack that targets as many unsuspecting people as possible in a public space... isn't it?

================================================= Paul whoknows: Why is this thread still open?Onewing: Because it is a pthread: a thread for me to pee on.

But again, I really hope no governments use it as an excuse to do more harm.

I love how someone attacks innocent people with a TERRORIST ATTACK and you twist it around and manage to use it as an excuse to speak out against governments?! That's fucked up. No, governments needs to EXPEL these people that do these sorts of cowardly attacks from the nation before they have a chance! There needs to be STRONGER screening of people that enter the nation to limit the chance of this happening again.

I guarantee Putin won't sit idly by while his people get killed. That's the sort of leadership we need, not cowards who are afraid to hurt people's feelings who do this sort of thing!

I love that we live in a time where there has NEVER in human history been more spying and tracking on citizens and yet we act like even though we're destroying our privacy, we still have no ability to deport or punish these criminals.

If it's SO hard to track them, to the point it's "pointless", why the hell did we give up our rights to privacy from our governments? Why are governments reading our e-mails, phone calls, and more if they can't use that to stop another innocent person from dying?

I'd love people who say "there's nothing that can be done" to tell that to the victim's families. "Sorry, bro, your child died. But terrorists are magical wizards who magically flip from normal person to monster over the period of half-a-second and we can't predict or stop it with our hundreds of billions of dollars of intelligence spending. They're wizards. You can't fight magic with technology. Hell, all of this intelligence and we can't even tell what religion they're all apart of!"

Which leads me into my last point. I love how the modern world pretends that one religion isn't at the core of all of this. As if any of us are ACTUALLY ever worried when we see an Amish guy that he might be some sort of Amish suicide bomber. Or all those Buddhist monks running around blowing up children's easter egg hunts. Don't the dead, at the very least, deserve the truth from us?

Meanwhile, ex-Muslims and Muslim reformists who are yelling at the top of the lungs, "It's the religion!" to deaf ears.

-----sig:“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

What is accomplished by "honoring" the dead, and how does this interpretation of truth honor them? I don't think it has anything to do with honoring the dead, and frankly if honoring is to be done I think it should be done by those that cared for the victims (it's likely for their benefit).

Then again, I suppose every such attack spreads terror to those in the immediate vicinity and surrounding areas (even the rest of the country).

If they weren't called terrorist attacks I guess you would just call them 'attacks', which is also true but lacks detail. I think a terrorist attack is basically just an attack that targets as many unsuspecting people as possible in a public space... isn't it?

I think that's where I was going with this. All attacks spread terror, and I don't think we can be certain of a suicide bomber's intentions. Was it terror, or was it merely "killing infidels" or some other goal? I don't think that "terrorism" is a useful detail at all. I think it's a scary buzzword that clouds the mind with terror itself and distracts us from the details.

I love how someone attacks innocent people with a TERRORIST ATTACK and you twist it around and manage to use it as an excuse to speak out against governments?! That's fucked up. No, governments needs to EXPEL these people that do these sorts of cowardly attacks from the nation before they have a chance! There needs to be STRONGER screening of people that enter the nation to limit the chance of this happening again.

It's difficult to do this without also preventing innocent people from escaping the terror. I would bet that the majority of "terrorists" are mentally ill in one form or another, likely from experiencing their own forms of terror, or perhaps from being brainwashed by group think and propaganda. I don't think that fearing them or reacting emotionally to their actions will accomplish anything productive.

It's impractical to expect that you could identify who all of these people are short of surrendering all of our privacy rights and installing monitoring software inside of our brains (and even that presupposes that the terrorists couldn't figure out how to bypass them, leaving only the law abiding citizenry vulnerable to them). That's ultimately the problem with a war on "terror". Anybody could become a terrorist in a matter of weeks or days given the right mental state and conditioning. You aren't going to beat it with hostility or intolerance. I think that realizing that the problem cannot easily be solved is the first step to solving it, or at least focusing on more productive attempts.

I guarantee Putin won't sit idly by while his people get killed. That's the sort of leadership we need, not cowards who are afraid to hurt people's feelings who do this sort of thing!

World leaders have not been sitting idly by for decades now. Has the frequency or severity of attacks lessened or intensified? It seems to me they are on some kind of wave, difficult to map.

It seems that Bin Laden was the product of USA meddling, and ISIS too appears to be the byproduct of Western forces meddling in worldly affairs for their own selfish ends. Instead of leaping to blame and scorn perhaps we should be considering where the blame should really fall and seek to extinguish the fire at the source instead of sprinkling water on the tips of the flames. Well I guess a better metaphor for what we're doing is fighting fire with gasoline. Perhaps a more accurate metaphor is fighting fire with oil.

I think education and mental health services are the only solution to "terrorism". And perhaps, legalizing "illicit" drugs and making it safer to access them and such alongside redirecting the billions of dollars currently used to "fight" it instead to educate people and provide them health services to make it safer or rid them of it.

This maybe relevant to the U.S. issues where people are allowed to own guns, and sometimes loose connection with reality and go playing FPS IRL. Not connected to the incident I mentioned. It was a guy, highly likely connected to ISIS(there are many Russian citizens fighting on the side of ISIS, which is one of the reasons the problem is so sharp for Russia: they may return one day, with really bad habbits).

***

About referring to it as to a terrorist attack. Well, it was by almost whatever definition you pick for it. I totally agree about the bullshit of War on terrorism, war on obesity and whatever wars U.S. is waging right now. Sounds hostile, and it is what I really dislike about U.S. government(which is so far the most influential).

***

About it used to do more harm. Well, so far the harm is limited to extra(yet nearly useless) security measures in the subway system of the city. If it's to last, it'll be worth billions of rubles of cop salaries(Russian government isn't exactly ultra rich, you see) for illusion of safety. Should I desire to make a suicde attack, I assure you'd pass through: they only check the bags at most anyways, and the bomb used was just 300 gramms of TNT, clearly a suicide belt isn't visible, and they wouldn't find it. More than this, during peak hours most bags aren't check anyways of course. No more than a 1/10 are I suppose.

As of more bombing in Syria.. Well, recently there was a chemical attack which killed way more. Perhaps there is a connection, perhaps there isn't. When Russia is hit it somehow often comes back at the offender, in indirect ways. Guess it's what you do when you don't have the power to do it in direct.

I guarantee Putin won't sit idly by while his people get killed. That's the sort of leadership we need, not cowards who are afraid to hurt people's feelings who do this sort of thing!

Meanwhile some in Russia claim it may have been Russian services to lift Putins ratings(anyways at near record highs..), others blame however else..But generally most likely there will be some more special services work on try to find people who maybe behind such kind of stuff, while in reality I believe it's not something one can be insured against. It's just way too easy nowdays to do.What maybe hard is to get someone to do it, aka find someone stupid enough to do it, yet smart enough to implement it.

As of screening and stuff to enter the country.. Well, Russia ain't the U.S.. It's exceptionally interconnected with ex-soviet states, you generally don't require not Visa, nor even a passport to enter in many cases. And well, you can't just deny people the freedom of movement. Their relatives, work and stuff.. Now also the story in Ukraine. Essentially any Ukranian angry enough(yet with sufficient self control) can arrange such an attack. Just come to Russia, buy the stuff needed and detonate himself.

***

@Chris

Well, there can be no insurance. But perhaps, just PERHAPS if Russia had the spying systems implemented(and monitored well enough) you have in the U.S, this attempt would've failed. I can't know. Clearly the spying isn't insurance, but it is of assistance. Not sure if it's worth it though. Despite this tragedy of it, and its proximity to me, well.. It is only ten people(yes each one is a tragedy, but still). About 30 000 people die from traffic accidents in Russia annualy. That's a lot worse problem than terrorist attacks. It is also enormous number in per capita basis, compared to.. ANy western country. Add to it Russia has less vehicles per capita, then you realize how much of a catastroph this number is. Yet terrorism is more talked about.

***

@bammcaig, againAbout honoring the dead. Well, their relatives are assisted by it.

It's only one pile of four or five. In the honor of the dead. I do think it's right to remember, move on, but remember.

About attack, or terrorist attack.. If it matters or not. Arguable, complex question. But since it is a terrorist attack, and in Russian there is one word for it. Well, so it's a terrorist attack.

About Putin's solutions. Well, it's highly unlikely the guy wasn't from one of the southern ex soviet states.. And well, Russia does, kind of has tools to fight this stuff. Same as Israel. Countries and leaders willing to achieve things tend to do that, while in the west a lot evolves about certain organizations profiting from the wars, others due to abundance of problems are forced to solve'em. This guys's family's human rights are likely to be severed. I think it's rather right than not. It's effective against these people, they have different kind of family ties. And this kind of example makes the families to disapprove such actions, resulting in lack of willingness for youngsters to repeat actions of the suicide bomber.

***

@Neil Would be nice if you were friendlier. That's sad for everyone to read.. I think Bmabmab shouldn't be denied his right to express his opinion. Besides it's not something can be proven wrong, although I disagree with it.

This maybe relevant to the U.S. issues where people are allowed to own guns, and sometimes loose connection with reality and go playing FPS IRL. Not connected to the incident I mentioned. It was a guy, highly likely connected to ISIS(there are many Russian citizens fighting on the side of ISIS, which is one of the reasons the problem is so sharp for Russia: they may return one day, with really bad habbits).

In my opinion, you'd have to be mentally ill to think "suicide bombing" is a good idea (unless you were extremely desperate, and the bombing had any hope of actually helping, but then even just being desperate might indicate mental illness due to stress). Add the religious ties and it's easy to claim mental illness. I personally support the idea that religion is a form of mental illness in itself. It may not be severe in most cases, but clearly it can be if incubated.

This is obviously different from some other mental illnesses that we're more familiar with. For one thing, it's mostly socially acceptable. We tend to think of anything socially acceptable as normal and healthy, even though that isn't always correct.

Why should this man kill himself? What did he accomplish in doing so? He probably devastated several families and temporarily shook everybody up, but that's all. On the grand scheme of things relatively little. And he will never know the fruits of his labors anyway because his consciousness ceases to exist (as far as we know). It was pointless. That's why I believe we should consider this a mental illness, and instead of trying to solve the problem with hostility as Neil suggests, I think we should approach the problem as if these people are ill in need of support and health services. Give them an alternative to becoming martyrs.

About referring to it as to a terrorist attack. Well, it was by almost whatever definition you pick for it. I totally agree about the bullshit of War on terrorism, war on obesity and whatever wars U.S. is waging right now. Sounds hostile, and it is what I really dislike about U.S. government(which is so far the most influential).

I must have been pretty drunk when I made the statement about not calling it terrorism because the next day I struggled to rationalize it myself. In any case, I think I'm just sick of the media sensationalizing it. As you said, even though it's incredibly serious for those 10 networks of family and friends, the impact is otherwise not very large. Throughout most of the world "terrorism" ranks below many other disinteresting causes of death that rarely make headlines.

Consider this: 9/11 cost some few thousand American lives, apparently about 10k total wounded, and for a decade it was an unspeakable tragedy deserving of a no holds barred offensive against "terr". That sounds like a lot until you compare it with leading causes of death like heart disease and traffic accidents. Turns out it's not a big deal, especially if it isn't repeating itself every few weeks (which was probably the original fear force-fed to us by the media and government).

Nevermind the insane numbers of civilian casualties the Americans caused in their assaults on Afganistan and Iraq which completely dwarf the number of American casualties. That's why I hate to see it sensationalized. I think it's done to blow things out of proportion. And I don't think it's a necessary detail. It's as if "terrorists" are one common collective with a single objective or something, instead of individual people and groups with their own twisted motivations.

It's true it's probably terrorism by definition, but does that need to be the headline? Can't they simply report what happened, a suicide bombing, and let the minor detail of terrorism be calculated by the reader? Isn't it even redundant to say it? I'm not sure still exactly what point I was trying to make the other night, but that's the best that I can do to rationalize it now.

Well, there can be no insurance. But perhaps, just PERHAPS if Russia had the spying systems implemented(and monitored well enough) you have in the U.S, this attempt would've failed. I can't know. Clearly the spying isn't insurance, but it is of assistance. Not sure if it's worth it though.

I don't think it is worth it. Clearly attacks are still possible, even with all of the spying, and it's mostly the legitimate citizenry that suffers from it. Recently I learned of a city police department in Canada sharing records with the Americans. Not even records of convictions. Any record at all of interacting with the police department. Typically it impacted job or even volunteer opportunities, or denied them access to the USA.

For example, one guy got busted when he was in high school smoking weed in a park with friends. During a business trip in his 40s he got pulled aside, harassed and searched and detained in front of an influential acquaintance. He was not able to make the trip, and has since been unable to even travel to the USA for business, despite many of his clients being American. For smoking a J at 17.

In another case, a single mother of an infant fell asleep after putting a pizza in the oven. The smoke detector went off which automatically alerted the fire department. This record was enough to have her flagged unable to do volunteer work apparently. It's useless information and it shouldn't even be available. There's criminal convictions which makes sense to share. But this other data is just meaningless, but it's enough to make prospective employers or border agents suspicious, or even just invoke "policies" without conscious thought by a human being. It's dumb.

It also presupposes that the people collecting and analyzing the data are somehow perfect people that do no wrong themselves. It doesn't exist. We're all human. We're not strangers to the idea of a "dirty" cop. Well "dirty" reaches all ranks of every occupation. We shouldn't be trusting anyone with this kind of responsibility by law. For one thing, we can't trust them to properly secure it. We also just can't trust them to use it appropriately.

It's only one pile of four or five. In the honor of the dead. I do think it's right to remember, move on, but remember.

My rant about honoring the dead was more in response to Chris claiming that filling headlines with "terrorism" somehow did anything to honor them. I agree that it's a nice gesture for the community to come together, for example, with flowers. I think that close communities are valuable, and this is something that can help to bring people together in a unique way. Technically the lives of those 10 people probably didn't actually matter to most of those people, but that's just a social white lie. They matter in the sense that we'd all be devastated if it was somebody we care about, and it could have been. Still I'm sure it's little comfort.

Go ahead, before you click, and guess the race and religion of the attacker. It might surprise you!

-----sig:“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

Even if it were true to an extent, it would be a generalization so it's probably safe to say that not every "ISIS" "militant" is mentally ill. There likely are political figureheads that lead the "organizations" and steer them towards their own ends. That said, I think it's only the ones that blow themselves up or get into mass shootings in public places that are of particular relevance to this discussion, and I think they're more likely to be affected by some forms of mental issues or illnesses.

I suppose it could also just be miseducation or a general lack of intelligence. I'd probably also attribute it to delusion. I'd support the argument that faith-based, strongly religious people are deluded, and I think you could also argue that is a form of mental illness.

I don't think scientists really understand the brain or psychology well enough to define it as a scientific certainty. There's too many things we don't know and the brain is too complicated for us to fully explain it. I think mental issues certainly play a part, but it's questionable whether modern psychology would define all "terrorists" as mentally ill (but then again, it's politically incorrect to call religious beliefs wrong so I think there are also limitations to the research).

I'd support the argument that faith-based, strongly religious people are deluded, and I think you could also argue that is a form of mental illness.

To be mentally ill, you must display symptoms atypical of your community. Religion is not mental illness--it's a normalization of beliefs within a community. It does not matter how atypical these beliefs are relative to other communities, it only matters how atypical the views of the person within a community are relative to their community.

An ISIS member believing in jihad may be extremely atypical relative to any random American Muslim community, but it's not necessarily atypical to their community (e.g., a war-ravished Syrian town).

The only thing you're doing is furthering the stigma and negative connotation of mental illness. Good job. After all, the mentally ill are many times more likely to be victims of violence than they are to be perpetrators compared to otherwise healthy adults.

You shouldn't try and blame some "Great Other." Just accept the fact that some otherwise ordinary people commit terrible acts out of religious, political, or cultural motivators, and oftentimes, they don't realize they're doing terrible things. The numerous million-man-strong totalitarian rises-of-power in the past century--resulting in genocide, war crimes, and massive loss of life--were perpetuated in large part by otherwise typical members of their societies. Sometimes, the evil is at a distance, sometimes it's close and personal.

But never can you attribute the cause so simply to a single factor like mental illness. Please, you're not a psychologist and I find it unlikely you're a victim of mental illness. You shouldn't talk so knowingly about such things with no experience in either. It's foolish.

Here's the thing. If ISIS isn't a religious organization, like the media and governments love to tell us, then why do they target Christians, and Christian symbols such as dates and historical sites?

It makes no sense at all. Oh wait, it's a religious organization. Maybe that's why ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The amount of mental gymnastics is amazing in this world. If HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Christians started a group that suicide bombed innocent people EVERY DAY around the world, and targeted Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and tried to start their own government, and chopped women's genitals off. Does anyone HONESTLY believe we'd be giving them the benefit of the doubt we do, to ISIS? Would we be going "Well, they were hurt by a government so they're mad." or "They have historical religious reasons for being abused." or "They're not CHRISTIANS."

No. If ISIS was full of Christians, every Christian would have to answer for it, and the real Christians would have gone to war to destroy them within a year. But that's the difference. Islam appeals to ultra-conservatives. Christianity does not. (You mean I'm supposed to "turn the other cheek"? What kind of loser talk that?!)

People love to equate Christianity and Islam. And it's a perfect comparison... if you're an idiot who doesn't understand time. Christianity, 400+ years ago, was as barbaric as Islam. Woman didn't have rights. People were stoned to death. All that horrible stuff... that Islam still does today. Islam is a religion that's 400+ years behind the times. Christianity evolved with capitalism. Puritan work ethic anyone? Christians have evolved to become subservient to governments and secular law.

There are 10,000's of Christian bands. Metal bands. Death metal bands. Techno bands.

Artists. Scientists. Progressive philosophers. Models that show their tits.

Where are all the progressive Iraqi/Saudi/Turkish bands showing off their titties?

Islam hasn't. Go to any poll. Google it right now. You'll find dozens of polls where Muslims IN THE USA AND UK believe that Sharia Law supersecedes secular law. That means, fundamentally, these people will not fully integrate into our society. They are above our society, and will only follow our laws when it fits their best interests (which are following their own Sharia Laws).

Remember, this is someone who, on THESE very forums, condemned the bad qualities of Christianity and Catholic, such as their abhorrent cover-up of pedophilia. (You can't necessarily control pedophiles, they are attracted to positions where they can abuse children. However, you CAN find them and throw them to the wolves when they abuse children. And to hell with the Catholic church for defending those scumbags.) So I'm not out on some "I'm 'Christian'* therefor Muslims are the bad guys." rant. I'm on a "Innocent people shouldn't die, whoever pulls to trigger" rant.

(*some people would even debate that I'm Christian.)

-----sig:“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

There isn't suicice attacks of other people because normal people dont want to kill themselves

but ISIS are too dumb to know that, they are muslim.

fundamentalist muslim

They believe

so for them it isnt a suicide it is a cultish religious thing, and they probably feel very special and proud to detonate, so thats why they do it

and thats why it is always a muslim that does the suicide attack they teh only ones with indoctrinations that "suicide" isn't really suicide that lets this happen

If you can de-religiousify them then they will downgrade from japanese-kamikaze level to merely IRA-bomber level, where they are still bombing you but by planting and lighting a fuse and running away, not by dying themselves

remember the only other time in history this has happened was ww2 japan, and it was the same case, religious cult fanatic brainwashing, that makes these dorks feel special to jump at you and die in the attack and that by doing that its the best thing they can do

But the thing is that ISIS is basically created from outside muslim world, like the illuminati created ISIS and that the ISIS recruiters take the phone call from the ISIS area supervisors who take the calls from the ISIS boss who takes the calls from his religious owner who takes the calls from the intelligence officer who takes the calls from CIA, GZHQ, France, UK, America, Hillary Clinton, Benjamin Netanyahu, François Hollande, Louis Gerhard De Geer, angela merkel, dick cheney, probably trump, george bush, and they all work together and thats why there is never a terrorist attack against rich people, the people that run the organizations, ceos, or politicians only against the people

because the ceos politicians the people that run the organizations created ISIS as a front to keep everyone else down

probably some guy had a patent in his breifcase that the ceo didn't want getting to the office so he called in a favour with his ISIS people that he funds to commit a terrorist attack on the subway so that it doesnt get through

and then everyone just argues amongst each other if muslims are bad or not

and then to make sure people can't reach a consensus and move onto deeper discoviereis they will import more different people to keep everyone divided like back in the roman empire and communist regimes, population movement to increase instability to make people dependant on the government, which prevents them from having competitors which means they can easily stay at the top and keep all the profits for themselves

and then they can use all the profits to live a life of luxury that you cannot dream of, that is what ISIS exists to support. If on the other hand ISIS provided an actual threat to them, it would be Iraq desert storm 2 all over again times ten faster than you can blink

thats how you know they are in on it, by their reactions.

(\ /)_____#_____####__#(O.o)¯¯¯#¯¯¯¯¯#¯¯¯#¯¯#(> <)__####__####__####Megabytes are where I keep my Data.

Because according to their RELIGION, the longer you're alive, the more sins you commit, the less likely you get into heaven. But, if you KILL CHILDREN, they haven't had as much time to become "corrupted" by their parents so you increase their chances of getting into heaven.

So it's a good thing to kill children.

Yeah. Let that sink into your head for a few minutes and you'll realize we're not fighting "a difference of opinion." We're up against an entirely different world.

And you've NEVER heard that from the MSM or any government official. No, I had to hear that from a !@$!ing podcast with an Islam expert who was talking to an actual Taliban member.

- Over 55% of Pakistani's living in Britain are married to a first cousin. 13 TIMES MORE LIKELY to give birth to children with recessive genetic disorders. Even though British Pakistanis only acount for 3.4% of population in the UK, they represent 30 PERCENT of all children with recessive disorders and have a higher rate of infant mortality.

Moreover, the average IQ loss goes down 10-16 points with inbreeding, and "The risk of having an IQ lower than 70 (criterion for being "retarded") increases 400 percent among children from cousin marriages".

So we're literally fighting retarded people. People who are that low IQ are much more likely to be violent, and follow extremist movements.

All the points in that link, are sourced back to BBC, WHO, etc reports and articles. And you're welcome to Google for more.

[edit]

For example, to diversify my sources, here's an Islamic Preacher and "doctor" teaching to a crowd on first cousin marriages:

Here's also listed in Wikipedia as "rock-star televangelist and a proponent of modern Islam." Could you imagine if a Christian televangelist tried to argue for marrying your cousin? Washington Post/Salon/Huffington Post would crucify him.

He also supports beating your wife "gently" and death for gays. If this is a "progressive" Muslim, what the hell is a conservative Muslim?!

Quote:

After revealing the investigations of the Dhaka Terror Attack in July 2016 published by The Daily Star that a terrorist involved in the brutal killings followed Zakir Naik's page on Facebook and was influenced[30] by Naik's speeches,[135] The terrorist had posted sermons of Zakir Naik on social media where Naik has urged "all Muslims to be terrorists"[15][136]

oops.

And to be clear. My goal is getting people to see the state the world is in. My goal is not to bash innocent people. It's not to "ban Islam!" My goal is, "less innocent people dying" and whoever is doing the shooting, I will continue to criticize. If a person is capable of being a peace loving Muslim with compatible values to modern society, I'm not even remotely addressing or including them in my criticism. Likewise, a Christian who attacks gays, or bombs abortion clinics is my enemy.

-----sig:“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

See, I think you could be making a mistake. (Not are, could). Let me explain.

There could be other factors that affect holding such beliefs. Have you taken a look at impoverished non-Muslim-majority countries? How about non-Muslim-majority countries facing military conflicts? Do a majority, or large minority, of these people hold (by Western standard) morally objectionable beliefs? Do immigrants from these countries to first-world countries perpetuate these beliefs across generations?

I think it's potentially incorrect to label Islam as the cause. It could be more likely being victims of brutal military conflict or mass poverty create the same environment that nurtures radical beliefs.

The issue certainly isn't simple enough for a soundbite. Otherwise, we'd have solved it by now!

However, Islam is (currently!) an ultra-conservative religion. (Just like Christianity was in it's "dark ages" of torture and witch burning.) The key part there is, Islam is attractive to people who WANT an ultra-conservative religion.

If Christians were in power, and there was power and money to be had by joining, there would be tons of new, Christian terrorists gaining the ranks. Just like how pedophiles are attracted to positions where they can abuse children (like the Catholic Church), Islam appeals to screwed up, violent people who want to fight for something greater than themselves.

However, that's only half (or part?) of the equation. Because once you're IN the religion, there is tons of encouragement of new recruits (who might have started as normal people), and there is tons of encouragement toward radicalization of current members. Ultra-conservatives end up raising more ultra-conservative children. They send their kids to ultra-conservative schools where they get more ultra-conservative brainwashing.

The "progressive" priest I linked to, is a world known priest on TV, and literally encouraged people to become terrorists. AND, as I linked above, KNOWN terrorists were both followers of his work. I can't imagine a stronger link than that unless we get a photo of them shaking hands while holding a big check signed by both parties with the memo field stating "For terrorism."

So Islam appeals to people who are more likely to blow people up. But it also fosters current members to become more radical too. It doesn't target, attack, and ostracize the "bad guys" who become too violent and conservative. Just like how the Catholic church wasn't burning pedophiles at the stake but rather HIDING them, Islam allows terrorists to exist. (Although, unlike Catholics who are against pedophilia. The majority of Muslims, even IN THE USA, are for death as a penalty for criticizing Islam, leaving Islam, and so on.)

"Muslim men can rape non-Muslim women to teach them a lesson, claims woman Islamic professor"

o_O

(It's okay though. India.com is probably GOP shill. )

-----sig:“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

I think most would agree that it's sickening, but then again I imagine Muslim men would think it sickening that Western men are at the mercy of their wife/girlfriend: if she changes her mind or was simply playing you from the start, go directly to court, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Give her half of your shit, if not more, pay her half of your income, and live in a shit apartment while she gets the house that you pay for, or moves in with another man while she collects from you. Probably you'll rarely see your kids, who will probably hate you because of the twisted narrative that their mother, or maybe their new step daddy, feeds them and also become troubled and delinquents from the whole life experience.

That's not to say that I see merit in what little I know of Muslim traditions or systems, but I think it's healthy to play devil's advocate. I'm sure they can easily pick holes in our system(s) as well as we can theirs. That doesn't solve much. It's better to recognize the flaws of both systems and strive for a better tomorrow. We have a lot of ground to make back up in our own systems. Perhaps the sickest part of it is that women's rights activists would rather fight for even more privileges and inequities for Western women than to lift a finger to help those in other cultures that are actually oppressed or even comprehend what the word means.

Append:

Re: the fucking lulz of Emma Watson talking to the fucking nations of the UN crying about oppression of women and girls in "Hollywood" or generally in her privileged life. So out of the loop it's not even funny. Basically reciting lines that sounded good to a target audience, and deplorable for the rest of the world.

Honest question to the people who think "there's nothing you can do." What happens if these attacks keep getting more often? At what point would inaction no longer be a viable strategy for you personally?

Once a week? Twice a week? 5 bombs a week?

One in your country a week. Three. Etc.

I'm not even trying to write a leading question. I'm honestly curious at which how many bombs a year, would you be motivated to take to the streets and demand change, or move away to another country, or whatever you would do.

-----sig:“Programs should be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.” - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"Political Correctness is fascism disguised as manners" --George Carlin

---Febreze (and other air fresheners actually) is just below perfumes/colognes, and that's just below dead skunks in terms of smells that offend my nose.MiquelFire.red | +MeWindows 8 is a toned, stylish, polished professional athlete. But it’s wearing clown makeup, and that creates a serious image problem. ~PCWorld Article

He's right. It's never going to end. Not with the way we're handling it currently (i.e., bombing a far away land) and discriminating against a large group of people. It costs us money and it accomplishes nothing good. The USA is already TRILLIONS in debt. How long can you continue to do expensive nothing useful?

Honest question to the people who think "there's nothing you can do." What happens if these attacks keep getting more often? At what point would inaction no longer be a viable strategy for you personally?

Once a week? Twice a week? 5 bombs a week?

One in your country a week. Three. Etc.

I'm not even trying to write a leading question. I'm honestly curious at which how many bombs a year, would you be motivated to take to the streets and demand change, or move away to another country, or whatever you would do.

I'm already motivated to take to the streets to demand change, but not over "terrorism". Over things like misandry, monopolies and excessive corporate power, and government abuse of [excessive] power. Thing is, it's damn hard to get a large enough group together to make anybody listen. That's kind of the problem. We can't fix the system because it's broken by design. The people with power don't have to fix it, and it suits them just fine.

It's nowhere near a serious threat to most of our lives. There are so many things that are more threatening that we don't even care about. It's ridiculous to even be concerned about this. When you leave your house are you seriously concerned about being killed by a Muslim? You're probably more likely to be killed by a Christian American non-terrorist! Just your average idiot raging in traffic or trying to take your TV (which is also probably insignificant to worry about if you take a minimum of precautions).

That said, you don't seem to be proposing change. You seem to be proposing more of the same. What change do you want? You want to outlaw certain beliefs or races? OK, but what happens when in 50 years it's YOUR family's beliefs that don't agree with those in power? You're going to leave? Haven't we grown past that kind of narrow-minded thinking?